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The Rational Response Squad is a group of atheist activists who impact society by changing the way we view god belief. This site is a haven for those who are pushing back against the norm, and a place for believers of gods to have their beliefs exposed as false should they want to try their hand at confronting us.

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Why doesn't a "god" need to follow this rule? I don't know why a omni powered being is more likely (or as likely) than a universe without the complexity of omni's having no cause. So I see it as a moot point until evidence is presented. However I know the universe is here. If the first cause of our universe is intelligent, I would ask where it got its intelligence?

Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.

* First cause assumes creation ex nihilo (creation of something from nothing). Even if the theist claims it doesn't, it has to. God is "supernatural," which the theist will insist means beyond, outside, or transcendent of nature. Since god, as a first cause, creates matter, energy, and time, which did not exist before, then everything natural was created from nothing natural. If it is possible for something to come from nothing, then god becomes superfluous.

* The simplest way to deal with the first cause argument is to simply ask, "Why must there be a first cause?" The theist will have to say something along the lines of "so that we get out of infinite regress." Then you ask, "Why must we get out of infinite regress?" They'll say, "So that we can have a first cause," or something like it. After a while, just by asking "Why?" you can demonstrate that there is no logical reason for assuming a first cause. Since there's no necessity for a first cause, god is again made unnecessary.

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

Any a posteriori argument for God will and always will commit the stolen concept fallacy. It is reflection of a discredited philosophical school called "trickle-down creation", the notion that a constructed object has to be created by a constructer more complex than the constructed object. And yet, counterintuitevely, scientific philosophy goes in totally the opposite direction. The necessary creative intelligence to create objects and put the trickle-down theory into practice can only arise from evolution from simpler origins.

Likewise, the Cosmological argument also commits a stolen concept fallacy because to account for natural laws, it has to posit an entity which is not bound by natural laws, but any attempts to explain the existence of such an entity are ultimately incoherent (given especially that human epistemology is limited, obviously, to the natural world).

To fix this supposed intractable of "first cause", they posit a solution which fixes no more problems than it creates further problems, all of which are defended as being inherently unknowable. Why should such an entity terminate the regress? The universe demands an explanation, thusly there is an entity of maximal intelligence and power not bound by the universe? Presumably this entity demands an explanation for its existence as well? Perhaps a better explanation considering that such a being is highly improbable? God runs in direct opposition to natural laws, which state that simplicity begets complexity. The complexity of the universe could only have sprung from simplicity, and complexity increases in accordance with natural laws that provide systems with free energy, better known as evolution. A creative intelligence, not bound by these laws, but being the solution which does not demand an explanation, not having started from simplicity, and working up, but always existing in maximally perfect form, is more improbable than the quantum tunneling prisoner experiment.

When we observe the universe’s history, it clearly goes from simple to complex, driven by free energy. Let us look at it in reverse order:

It’s absurd. Utterly absurd. Far from being an explanation of the universe, it merely creates superfluous epistemic baggage, unnecessary questions on the existence of the entity against the grain of natural law. So it should come as no surprise that it gets swiftly eliminated via Occam’s Razor.

To claim God based on any a posteriori observations is a Pot/Kettle fallacy. By deducing (or usually inducing) a property of the natural world, one attempts to draw the existence of an entity which transcends these properties, not realizing this is hypocritical and a stolen concept fallacy. Everything needs a cause? In that case we will assert an “uncaused cause”, and they argue this with a straight face, not realizing this is a giant epistemic black hole. (It could be described as a “special pleading” fallacy). Same for design. Complex entities require design? In that case we will assert an “undesigned designer”. To invoke an entity which transcends natural laws based on observations of natural laws is a stolen concept fallacy which contradicts itself, seeing as the only way it could hold water as is to treat the induced laws as fixed, yet positing an entity which breaks these laws. This is a special pleading fallacy. There is no epistemology for concluding in the existence of a being transcendent of naturalism based on observations of naturalism, this, I hope everyone realizes, is hypocrisy of the highest degree. Invoking a law of logic merely to attempt to disprove said law of logic. This commits multiple logical fallacies: Stolen concept, Pot/Kettle, special pleading and circular reasoning. It just cannot be done. You would be attempting to disprove your own referent, which in turn would invalidate your conclusion.

A simple way to observe this is to write it in formal logic, as such:

Major Premise: All things need a cause Minor Premise: Infinite Regress is not possible Conclusion: There must have been a first cause, which is God

Which I always felt should be written like this:

Major Premise: All things need a cause Minor Premise: Infinite Regress is not possible Conclusion: There must have been a first cause Absurd Conclusion: Which is God

Anyway, anyone should be able to blast a hole in it by pointing out that it invalidates itself. We can show this by rewriting it again Major premise: There must be have been an uncaused cause Minor Premise: Then not all things need a cause Conclusion: If not all things need a cause, then a God is not required to break the infinite regress

The problem with the Cosmological Argument is that it is attempting to deduce a conclusion which is contradictory to its premise. If the conclusion is that there must have been a first cause, we are asserting that our premise (all things need a cause) is a falsehood, and then the whole argument is invalid.

So where did the universe come from? I discuss this in an essay called Lies, Damn lies, and Misconceptions about Ex Nihilo

A special kind of stolen concept fallacy is one in which the theist steals from naturalism by invoking an entity with properties that are necessarily natural (or at very least, for which there is certainly no, nor can there ever be, a positive ontology) and that the subsequence of the creation of this entity is necessary for the properties which apparently the “entity” itself holds. This is absurd. You can argue for a conscious creator of the universe not realizing that a universe is necessary for consciousness. You can argue for a sentient creator of matter, and not realize that matter is needed for sentience, you can argue for a…etc ad infinitum. The natural state of the universe in terms of complexity is bottom-up, not top-down.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

My favorite observation is that it would be impossible for God to have created the universe; since the law of causation did not exist before God created the universe, God could not have caused anything before the universe existed, including the universe.

If I am wrong on any point (including, but not limited to, spelling, grammar, and the question of God's existence), please correct me as quickly as possible.